Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#91

Post by matsemann » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:01 PM UTC

willio58 wrote: post #6

The shear amount of floundering that twitter has done since Elon bought it is hilarious as a non-user. I do feel bad for the people who just like using twitter though, like every other week the checkmark means something different. I hear the trending tab is overrun with crypto spam now. Elon really knows how to shake up a company! And by shake up I mean destroy one step at a time.

Most annoying thing is blue checks being boosted to the top of every thread. Especially since most blues in my replies are either scams or harassment. So I just hide all blues and tell them to pay me $8 to be visible, lol.

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#92

Post by rejectfinite » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

willio58 wrote: post #6

The shear amount of floundering that twitter has done since Elon bought it is hilarious as a non-user. I do feel bad for the people who just like using twitter though, like every other week the checkmark means something different. I hear the trending tab is overrun with crypto spam now. Elon really knows how to shake up a company! And by shake up I mean destroy one step at a time.

For me, it's better.

They removed the annoying login pop-up.

I only interact with twitter using links from other platforms. I don't use the trending hashtags or search.

So for me, it's been better since Elon took over.

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#93

Post by rejectfinite » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:06 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #73

olalonde wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He cut Twitter's expenses significantly while avoiding reliability issues (a feat that debunked several predictions by tech "experts" on HN about potential major outages) and while adding several new useful features. Admittedly, his decision to unban several controversial figures was debatable from a business standpoint, at least in the short term. However, this was not an oversight but a conscious decision, based on…

Twitter has been falling over during even moderate load this year, and completely crapped out last night during Musk's embarrassing soiree for Ron DeSantis. Musk is a bootlicking clown who deserves every bit of mockery he gets.

Would pre-elon Twitter have handled 500k in one Twitter space? :)

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#94

Post by tracker1 » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:08 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #70

d4mi3n wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This misses the point that the op is making: $100/minus cost prohibitive for anybody looking to use the API casually or explore deeper integrations for it. You might be able to get a solo developer to pay $5 - $20 USD per month to trial something, but few will be willing to drop $1.2k/year for marginal gains.

I honestly think they don't care if they turn off developers. The core of their platform is advertising, and API users don't see the ads. I'm also guessing that API usage dramatically outweighs actual users in the past. And while I'd rather see an ad free paid tier, I get it... they were dramatically over-valued and the expenses needed to be reigned in from where they were. It was unsustainable.

I'm not sure that I understand the downvotes... Unless the suggestion is the twitter management absolutely cares about small/indy developers or that they didn't need to cut expenses.

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#95

Post by kibwen » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:09 PM UTC

rejectfinite wrote: post #93

kibwen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter has been falling over during even moderate load this year, and completely crapped out last night during Musk's embarrassing soiree for Ron DeSantis. Musk is a bootlicking clown who deserves every bit of mockery he gets.

Would pre-elon Twitter have handled 500k in one Twitter space? :)

Considering that Twitter's infrastructure team was gutted and all the current infrastructure is the work of pre-Elon Twitter: yes, by definition.

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#96

Post by evolve2k » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:11 PM UTC

methodical wrote: post #45

RGBCube wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like paying $100 a month to be able to publish your fart noise app on the Apple Store.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment but if you're under the presumption the Apple Developer membership is $100/ mo then I wanted to clarify it's actually $100/ yr for Apple Developer (it's actually 99 but I'm not going to play semantics).

Thanks for unpacking it, I read that as their exact point.

Apple is $100 for a whole year, while Twitter is $100/month.

Aka Twitter is way overpriced by comparison.

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#97

Post by mthoms » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:12 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #84

mthoms wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>his commitment to uphold freedom of speech over profits For your consideration, here's some evidence to the contrary. Twitter now agrees to 80% of censorship requests from various governments vs 50% previously. >Twitter’s acquiescence to autocratic or non-liberal regimes is not an exaggeration by critics of the social network. [...] Since Musk’s takeover, the company has received 971 requests from governments (compa…

My understanding is that Elon's position is to defer to the law regarding speech. So it would make sense that censorship is increasing in some countries while decreasing in others. In the US, Twitter was previously censoring a lot of legal speech and I believe that's what mostly concerned him. Edit: I perhaps used "free speech" a bit ambiguously in the previous comment. I edited it to "principles" to avoid causing mo…

It makes sense if he only cares about certain types of speech. Given he censors more overseas than previous Twitter leadership did (without getting banned) - it's really hard to argue he is motivated by principles rather than politics and money.

Furthermore, a person who is strongly principled on freedom of speech would not ban people he disagrees with. Yet, he's done that in spades. I mean come on. Can we just stop with this pretending?

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#98

Post by olalonde » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #89

olalonde wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter didn't "completely" crap out. There was a slight hiccup when a Twitter Space event was delayed by 20 minutes as engineers worked to accommodate the unexpected load. But speaking from personal experience as a daily Twitter user, I've noticed no significant issues post-takeover. This type of exaggeration perfectly illustrates the mainstream media's tendency to perpetuate misinformation about Twitter. It contrib…

Using "the mainstream media" as a bogeyman was tired 20 years ago, and it's even more tired these days. We can view Elon Musk's own depredations plainly on Twitter itself, with no "mainstream media" involved, and the evidence of Twitter's decline (that just so happens to correlate with Musk's takeover) can be observed directly on Twitter as well, with blue-checked right wing fruitcakes boosted to the top of every tim…

Considering your strong disagreement with Elon's stance on content moderation and free speech, might it be possible that your perception of Elon 'destroying' Twitter stems more from personal bias, or 'wishful thinking', rather than a balanced appraisal of the facts? It's hard to know for sure as an outsider, but it would personally surprise me a lot if Twitter was in fact dying.

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#99

Post by mthoms » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

rejectfinite wrote: post #92

willio58 wrote: post #6

The shear amount of floundering that twitter has done since Elon bought it is hilarious as a non-user. I do feel bad for the people who just like using twitter though, like every other week the checkmark means something different. I hear the trending tab is overrun with crypto spam now. Elon really knows how to shake up a company! And by shake up I mean destroy one step at a time.

For me, it's better. They removed the annoying login pop-up. I only interact with twitter using links from other platforms. I don't use the trending hashtags or search. So for me, it's been better since Elon took over.

I still see the popup when not logged in. Every time.

Re: Twitter launches new Pro tier for $5000/month

#100

Post by RGBCube » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:19 PM UTC

methodical wrote: post #45

RGBCube wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like paying $100 a month to be able to publish your fart noise app on the Apple Store.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment but if you're under the presumption the Apple Developer membership is $100/ mo then I wanted to clarify it's actually $100/ yr for Apple Developer (it's actually 99 but I'm not going to play semantics).

I thought it was $100/year, thanks for clarifying.

That makes Twitter 12x more expensive. Wild.